I just finished reading a piece of fiction that had been misfiled by the editors of the New Yorker under a category – feature? expose? – that is commonly associated with non-fiction. i.e. truthful reporting. The article, by Jon Lee Anderson, would appear to the relatively uninformed American – and boy aren’t there a lot of us – to be one that covers the thirty year war in Sri Lanka from start to finish. Oddly enough, it is largely erroneous, its one nod to any “good” achieved by Sri Lanka’s government is contained in a parenthesis, as if he just ran out of time to get all the information but felt what he had was enough to pass muster. But what the heck, how odd is it when I am yet to see a single article in the American press that actually covered the events in Sri Lanka without prejudice against her government and her entire people, both Sinhalese and Tamil?
Sri Lankan journalist, Malinda Seneviratne, ends his testimony to the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC), with a reference to the human particulars of war. Jon Lee Anderson is content with three unidentified witnesses, one of whom is supposedly a social worker but is strangely able to travel in restricted areas with no problem and to whom various Tamil “prisoners” make representations, and a bit of attention-getting video tape that was discredited when it was first shown by the BBC.
The Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and novelist, Lorraine Adams said once, in conversation with me during a Rumpus Mini interview, “Reality is not a news story or a short story. It’s a big, too often boring, place of inconsistency, frustration, and, only rarely, the beauty of clarity.” Jon Lee misses it entirely in this piece. I’d say to him, “I know my people and they are not the ones you describe. Clearly, you also know yours. For you and yours it is enough to write a pile of garbage about people ‘from somewhere else’ and call it truth.” It is no surprise that Mr. Anderson does not even mention the LLRC. Obviously, nothing “counts” unless it is authenticated by the foreign press. If anybody truly wants to hear some history, some facts, some suggestions, some heart, some TRUTH, listen to this:
Testimony Part I:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9-gFkKwL5E
Testimony Part II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfMNpKw-qKc
Questions Following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uERcOL5Sxyk&NR=1
And if you want to hear how fiction fights for the truth, come listen to Lorraine and me along with Luis Alberto Urrea, Porochista Khakpour and Natalie Handal, speaking from the experience of straddling the POV of America as well as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iran, Mexico and Sri Lanka, speak at AWP in Washington, D.C. (listing below).
3 – 4.15pm/Friday
Palladian Ballroom
Omni Shoreham Hotel, West Lobby
F207A. I Am Not a Terrorist: The Political Writer. (Terry Hong, Lorraine Adams, Ru Freeman, Nathalie Handal, Porochista Khakpour, Luis Alberto Urrea) As national borders disintegrate through war and technology, fictional ones do not necessarily follow suit, often staying true to place. But must writers whose lives are political, and who function as spokespersons for worlds that American readers may never visit, write politics into their art? Writers with ties to current debates about Iran, Palestine, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, discuss the burden of truth and the choices they make as cultural translators.
I guess people can’t discuss these things because they don’t understand and as long as we get articles like the one in the New Yorker, people will continue not to know and not to understand. Meanwhile, the world shrinks and people outside this country learn more, reflect more, and respond accordingly. Sucks.
Ru, you’re right that articles like this one in the New Yorker can do wonders at spreading ignorance. Of course we don’t need the help in the ignorance department, thank you very much. But as much as I want to say we’d be better off if Anderson simply hadn’t written anything about Sri Lanka, maybe it can spark some productive conversation. I hope you–or Malinda or _______–write the New Yorker a letter in response.
Btw, is the text of Malinda’s testimony posted anywhere? The audio isn’t great on those clips (I need the volume to go up to about 14). And if you could point to more reliable writing about Sri Lanka, including your own, that’d be great.
Finally read Malinda’s testimony. It’s eminently sensible.
Thanks for reading, Derek. I wish you could meet some of these people. Did you see the shout out to you on the huff po blog I did today?
Would love to meet them–and thanks for the shout out. I did catch that.
Dear Ru,
It is unfortunate that you clearly show yourself to be an apologist for the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) without taking a bipartisan approach to the article of Jon Lee Anderson. The article is not bad and certainly not fiction as you claim. The Sri Lankan armed forces did bomb the ‘no fire zone’ that they themselves created for the people, unlike you I was in sri lanka when all this was unfolding.
The other sad reality is your hypocritical criticism of the United States all the while you enjoy the perks of U.S. Citizenship. How sad.
Myil Selvan –
Thanks for stopping by. I’ve read your many responses to people like Dayan Jayathileke, but I have yet to see you actually engage with anybody who is not a Tamil separatist or supports that vision, except to throw a few good jabs at them.
My criticism on the US is based on years of living and working in the US *including* – unlike you – participating in righting its many wrongs. I don’t believe that living in a place necessitates some kind of blind allegiance to the place, nor do I believe in *not* stating what is good/true when it so happens that something is good/true (i.e. the resettlement of the refugees in Sri Lanka etc.).
I was not in Sri Lanka during the final battle. Does that mean I am unaware of the details of the war? If that is your perception, would you like to tell the thousands of Tamil “refugees” who fled Sri Lanka and took up domicile in Toronto and Boston and London etc. that they can’t possibly know what the heck they are talking about when they decide to march down the streets of these Western and European cities?? I bet you wouldn’t. Because in the minds of people like you, lies a degree of self-delusion and hatred for Sri Lanka that would put Osama bin Laden’s hatred for the US to shame.